Archive of Our Own ^beta

Daniel’s always had a way with words, he thinks.

He knows how to pick them, at least. On a stage, he’s electric — he knows how to catch attention, draw eyes to where he needs them to go and come across as a charming, confident guy. That’s all part of the job description — performers need a good stage persona, and he’s always been too good at cultivating a mask to hide behind.

That’s not to say that the way he has with words is good. In the slightest, actually. He wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s bad, but he also knows himself well enough that there aren’t a whole lot of applicable adjectives that wouldn’t end up somewhere bad-adjacent. He’s clever and quick with the facade he puts out, has years of experience in seeming perfectly entertaining and self-assured and in control, and knows that he’s a good presence in a show — it’s just also that usually, when he opens his mouth outside of his performances, it tends to go…. poorly.

He knows he’s sharp, all rough edges and barbed words, and he struggles with showing kindness in the same way that other people struggle with learning a second or third language — and outside of the stage, his words are more likely to elicit eyerolls and sharp retorts, irritated huffs and exasperated sighs than they are to win him a smile.

He’s not tactful. He’s not graceful, or considerate, or sensitive or thoughtful — none of the things that good listeners or good people are. He’s sharp, and cynical — a little bitter, sometimes, and a lot sarcastic even on the best of days. He’s got a lot of talents, many varying skills built up and fine-tuned over the years — but he’s not ashamed to admit he’s never quite figured out how to be nice.

Still, though — ever set on proving the contrary, Henley showed up. And, just like it was the first time she walked into his life with a radiant smile and her hair lighting up around her like a halo — there’s something different about her.

It’s something he keeps coming back to, over and over — he stares himself blind on her, watches as she laughs at Merritt’s suggestive jokes and sips the mugs of tea Jack makes her, when she trudges down the stairs in the early mornings and sits on the couch to read a book and when she rolls her eyes at him and clicks her tongue when he reminds them to stay on schedule.

She was always quick, and clever — brilliant enough to keep up with him, and creative enough to catch him by surprise and surpass him just as often.

He’d hated to admit it, back when she’d first sauntered into his life in a glittery suit and bolder makeup, already telling him she’d be his new assistant before he’d even caught her name — because the fact that she was as quick as he was, sometimes quicker — it meant that he had to pay extra attention, had to recalculate everything he said and wrote down just because no one else had ever bothered to correct him before.

It was exhilarating, and terrifying, and he’d never let her know how much her quick wit and sharp tongue made him feel alive, lest she’d take it as a compliment.

It also meant that the iron grip he’d always had on his control — over the show, the performance and his own reactions, the emotions he’s never quite ready to deal with — started to slip, bit by bit.

They were equals, evenly matched — and it scared him more than he’d been ready to admit. He’d held her off, rebuffed her efforts and though they spent more time together than apart, sharing a show, an apartment, a bed — they never made it official. They were never together.

She was as clever as he was, and she was enough to rival him — and he’d kept her at bay, pushed her away until he’d chased her off.

His performance, his persona relied on being the smartest person in the room — and there was no way to do that with her. He couldn’t ask her to be less, and he couldn’t get himself to be more — and so he’d lashed out, callousness tearing at his skin and burning on his tongue as he’d found every opening in her armour that she’d left to him, aimed an arrow and let go.

It’s not something he does often — letting go isn’t in his nature, and he’d regretted it the moment she’d gone.

It’s why he’d been surprised to see her at the apartment, had already recognised her even before he’d left his cab — and she keeps surprising him in everything she does.

She laughs at his questions, dismisses his orders and tells him to shove off whenever the electricity buzzing in his veins spills over and sharpens his tongue until harsh tones and biting words are all he’s left with.

She pushes back when he tugs too much, when he doesn’t know how to back off and she stops him in his tracks, anyway. They’ve always been a little too much of the same, and it hadn’t worked when he’d been in charge, when she’d been stuffed into a role that she’d always been too great for — she wasn’t meant to be a side character, and watching her now, having seen her in the months leading up to their biggest show yet — it’s more obvious than ever.

On the stage, she’s shining — the lights refract and revolve around her as though she’s never been anywhere else, as though she was made to be there, and it’s all he could do to tear his eyes away and focus on his own segment of the show.

He’s no stranger to admiration, feeling it bubble up and scorch the inside of his throat or basking in the warmth of the starlight glowing in the eyes of others. He knows there aren’t many people who do what they do, the four of them — and there aren’t many people that he himself admires. He’s not surprised that he’s found himself grudgingly appreciative of Merritt’s skill in mentalism, smarmy as the man may be, and though he won’t say it, Jack’s quick and clever — and well on his way to being even quicker than Daniel himself. Then there’s Henley — who was talented, before, and seems to breathe it even more, these days.

They’re all incredible in their own right, and though he’s far beyond pretending he isn’t even slightly impressed by all of them, his facade of being in this only for the glory and not caring about the people standing alongside him in the team long gone at this point — he can’t help but stare at these people, watching cards flick around Jack’s fingers easy as breathing and watching as Merritt quirks a knowing eyebrow at him whenever he’s too on edge to take a proper breath and tells him that he’s fine — and acknowledge that they’re good. They’re great at what they do.

Henley’s still different — in the same way she always is. He watches years of practice, skill and talent blending to form a staggering performance, and though he’s appreciative of Merritt and Jack’s abilities — he finds himself mesmerised by Henley. That’s not too unusual, irritating though that may be.

No, the strangest thing is that he almost wants to say it.

Kindness has never come easy to him — compliments are given in convoluted, twisted ways, wrapped up in commentary and distractions so that they’re never too sincere, and even there’s at least a dozen excuses at the ready for every gesture that he makes. He brings them tea only because he can’t drink an entire pot on his own and the flavour’s best when the teabag is steeped in a larger volume of water, and they’re only having Jack’s favourite for dinner because the takeout store was already on his way home — completely unrelated to the bad day he’d been having.

The unscheduled breaks they take on the days that Merritt’s got a headache are always coincidences, and he’s only stocking up on Henley’s brand of crisps because they’re the cheapest — and the reason that he stays up late to file through all the preparations for the shows is clearly because he’s the most capable of reading through it all, and not at all because he doesn’t want them to have to worry about any of it.

That would be ridiculous. He knows better than to show his hand, and they know better than to expect it of him. He’s cold, and callous, and unkind — and he’s content to keep it that way. If he shows them anything else, anything more — they’ll start expecting it of him, and it’ll only lead to disappointment. He’s not made to be kind — he’s not meant to be with people, he supposes.

Henley consistently keeps turning his expectations upside down, though.

With her, he finds himself wanting to try it. Watches her blow on the mug she’s holding, steam wisping and billowing across her in the early morning light and thinks of telling her how brilliant she is. How breath-taking he thinks she looks, and how much he admires the way she never seems to balk at anything.

He wants to tell her that she’s more than he’d ever thought could fit in a person — that she’s bold, and fierce, and clever and kind and so, so gifted. In her skillset, her qualities — in who she is, inherently, and that it’s terrifying enough that their life feels like a dream, sometimes.

He wants to tell her that he wants to stare at her for however long she’ll let him — that when she looks at him, he never wants her to look away. He’s careful not to let his perfectly-curated mask of perfectionism slip, has never wanted anyone to look past it and see the things he tries to hide — but somehow, there’s the unfamiliar urge to stop, to bite back the deflections and retaliations and be sincere, for once.

It’s not something he cares to examine, really — except that it’s thrumming behind his ribs, like a heartbeat. Tell her. Tell her. Tell her. He’s never wanted to be honest — has never dared it, because he knows what lies behind the facade he’s cultivated, knows that it’ll never be enough, not even for himself — but there’s a part of him that wants to try it, now.

There’s a part of him that wants to tell her sorry.

It’s absurd. He’s not Danny, not the person she greets in the mornings with a small smile or the guy that gets invited to the team movie nights — he’s J. Daniel Atlas, the standoffish control freak that makes sure the performance goes according to plan. He’s not someone who chooses honesty, or kindness — or apologises, regardless how well-deserved it would be for the things he’d said, the way he’d kept her at arm’s length despite her best efforts.

He’d been cold to her, and she’d left him for it — and over the years he’s regretted it, has missed her and wished for her — but he’s never once wanted to apologise. Not until she showed back up and rearranged his life to make space for herself, again, and he stood by and let her.

She looks up from her tea and catches him staring, a knowing smirk tugging at her lips, and she’s spotted him before he can school his reaction into anything else. He’s not sure what she sees in his expression, whether it’s something in his eyes or something else that makes her smile, but their eyes meet and all he can think to say is I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

He’s always had a way with words, though, however good or bad one might say it is — so what comes out instead, is a clumsy, “Your mascara’s smudged.”

Her smile is gone, instantly, an aggravated frown crossing her face, and she sighs irritably as she puts the mug down and sits back in her chair. “Honestly, Danny, that’s what you’re staring at?”

There’s nothing else he could say — no honesty to spill from his lips, no sincerity left to lose — he’s always been a performer, misdirection and deception and deceit coming to him like second nature, and he clicks his tongue as he shrugs indifferently, the rapid thudding of his heart in his throat at odds with the stillness he ensures in his hands. “It’s distracting.”

“Well, feel free to look away, then,” she snaps back, and blinks demonstratively at him. “Worry about your own mascara.”

She sighs and pulls her knees up, crossing her ankles and looking away from him pointedly. There’s a rebuttal on his tongue, that age-old urge to always have the last word rearing its head — but he decides against it, tries to salvage some of the peace that they’d had before he’d gone and ruined it again, a silent apology by letting her get the last word in. She glances at him, waiting for him to speak up — and then breaks their gaze the moment their eyes meet.

There’s a tension in the air, a string pulled taut between them — and the slightest breath, the smallest stirring of the air would be enough to tug at it, to either draw them closer or aggravate them beyond repair. He doesn’t dare touch it, doesn’t acknowledge it — and neither does she.

They sit in stillness, irritation and infatuation simmering between them until the stalemate is broken by Merritt coming in, mid-conversation with Jack about one of the books he’s been reading. There’s a brief pause where he glances between them, quirking an eyebrow when Daniel looks up and rolls his eyes when Merritt smirks knowingly — and Daniel’s up from the couch in an instant, an excuse ready on his tongue.

“I’m gonna find Dylan,” he says, defensive even to his own ears — “I’ll see you guys later.”

He’s not interested in seeing Jack’s questioning gaze, looking between the two of them as though they’re a puzzle he’s trying to solve, and Merritt’s never been good at leaving things alone — until they’ve figured it out on their own, Henley and him, there’s no sense in letting Merritt meddle or getting cheap shots in. He’s sure Henley will agree.

Still, though — he’s stepping through the door, goodbyes following him like smoke trailing after a burn, and he hears the warmth in Henley’s voice when she greets Jack and Merritt, pleasant and inviting in a way she never directs at him — and there’s a sense of cold growing in his chest that has nothing to do with the cold tiles of the flooring beneath his feet.
He wonders if she misses the same warmth in his voice, too.

“Danny?”

The floorboard creaks again as he steps on it, protesting against the gravity of his weight, and he turns around again, paces down the length of the living room back towards the window.

She’s on his mind again — always is, in his dreams, and when he’s awake, and when he’s up at night and sleep eludes him like a lover scorned, and he can’t quite manage to find it within himself to lie back down and try again.

Henley’s remarkable. She’s sharp and quick and clever, in the same ways that he is, except she knows how to be more than that, too. She’s warm and funny in the way that he tries to be and never manages, and he envies the way that she hones her words until the edges are sharp but always knows how to wield them so that they’re never cutting.

She says what she wants, and she knows how to convey a hundred different meanings in just one single word — and he’s always needed close to a hundred just to convey one single thing. It’s the difference between them, he thinks. He talks, and talks, and talks around it for the hundredth time and never quite dares to say what he wants to — and she doesn’t even have to. It’s in the way she says everything, and the way she says his name makes it sound both like the best and the worst thing that he’s ever heard.

Sometimes she says it softly, almost reverently, when the nights are for just the two of them and he finds a way to say what he wants to, what she needs to hear. She says his name when he offers her tea, the cupboards filled to the brim with her favourite blends, and it sounds like a thank-you. She says it when they’re fighting, harsh and clipped, and it sounds like a door slamming shut. She says it when she talks about him to the others, when he overhears her on the phone or comes home to find Jack or Merritt on the couch — and she says it so comfortably, familiarly, that it sounds like he belongs here, with her — as though his name belongs on her lips.

She’s never needed many words to speak her thoughts, and she needs even less to let him know what she’s feeling. She wields her words not as weapons, but as extensions of herself, and it’s both shielding and frightening. It means he never has to guess at what she’s thinking, doesn’t get the chance to get himself tangled up inside his own mind trying to interpret her actions — because there’s no doubt in the things she says, and does.

It’s terrifying, because he can’t do it in return. She knows how to read him, and he knows that she does — and yet, even though he knows his secrets are all but bared, the words still get caught in his throat. He doesn’t know how to say it aloud, how to show her how to get closer — and when he says her name, it somehow always sounds like a plea.

He’s never known quite how to do it like her, how to put his feelings into words — let alone into the tone that he’s using. She’ll tell him a dozen things with a single word, and he flounders and gives her back a waterfall just to provide her with an answer. They’re not equals — never have been, and where he used to try and make it seem as though that was because he was more, was better than she was — he was the main act, after all, and she was the supporting act, his assistant, until she left and did better than he ever did — but it’s never been him in all the years they’ve known each other. It’s the only thing that he thinks she hasn’t managed to figure out before he did.

“Danny—!”

Her voice cuts through his thoughts, sharper than it did before, and when he turns back to the bedroom, he realises it’s because she’s not in his thoughts — she’s here, standing in the doorway, arms crossed and worried frown on her face. “Are you done ignoring me?”

“I didn’t hear you,” he deflects, slowing down his pacing until he’s standing halfway between her and the other wall. “Sorry, I couldn’t sleep.”

“I can tell,” she says pointedly, a quick glance at the clock that he knows is on the wall behind him. He hasn’t bothered to check it, but it’s late enough that the usual sounds of traffic outside their windows have all died down. “I woke up and you were gone. Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he’s quick to reassure her, “sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you up. Just go back to bed, I’ll be right there.”

“Something keeping you?”

It’s a loaded statement. There’s no reason for him to be up, haunting the halls of their home in the dead of night when there’s a place for him to rest beside her — but it happens, more and more now that there aren’t plans and schematics and preparations to occupy his brain.

It’ll start with the faintest tremble, an instability in his hands that returns stronger and stronger the longer that he doesn’t find something to occupy them with. During the day he’ll have his cards out, flicking and swiping through the deck with quick, practised motions that let him quiet the buzzing in the back of his mind — but at night, when Henley’s asleep next to him, he doesn’t want to risk waking her, tries to close his eyes and breathe in and out and listens to the pattering of his heartbeat as it works itself up to a familiar breakneck pace.

Some nights it works, when tries to match the rhythm of his breathing to hers and feels his heart slow down until it beats to the sound of her name on his lips, a ghost on his breath — and other nights he only feels himself spiralling out of control, more and more until there’s a quiet panic in his bones that tells him to move, to do something, anything—

He ends up pacing in the living room, most of the time — the cards aren’t enough to get the nervous energy out, by the time it gets this bad, and he doesn’t know how else to slow down, to get his limbs to respond through the haze of staticky, white noise surging through his nerves.

He used to stay up late, poring over the plans for the show for the millionth time, debating the tiniest alteration to the colour of the spotlights shining down on them from above, or whether their spots on the stage should be just the slightest bit altered, a little to the left or to the right depending on the hour of the night — anything, really, to keep himself busy enough that he didn’t have to think about the sharp bite of insecurity lingering in the back of his throat after every breath.

He worries — about anything, and everything, and most things that he can still fit in either category or in-between, about the way he tries to play himself up for the stage and down behind it, when he tries to swallow the instinctive, built-in response to wave off their concern by biting at them to go away and fails at it anyway — when he sees it in the dejected twist of Jack’s lips when he rejects his invitations for time spent together, a movie already prepared on the television or a boardgame in his hands — and he feels it in the disapproving gaze Merritt levels at him when he fails to show up for dinner and Merritt comes by to bring him a plate, or when he gets caught with the bottle of painkillers after insisting high and low that he’s fine.

He wants to try — he wants it, the same way he wants to be counted amongst the greatest magicians of their time and tries his best to make it there. He tries to make up for it by giving away the secret to his tricks when Jack watches him practice so he can figure them out, and bickers with Merritt when the man calls him out on something and deliberately lets things slide that he definitely wouldn’t have a year ago — he’s not kind, nor is he gracious and friendly, but he tries really, really hard to make attempts, and he’ll never stop feeling just the slightest bit bewildered that they’re still letting him try, over and over and over no matter how many times he misses the mark and pries a little too hard, cuts a little too deep.

He’s scared — that he lets them in and that he won’t measure up. It’s easy to stomach dislike and disdain when it’s what he cultivates — when he invites it in with harsh words and dismissive gestures, shows them arrogant, rude behaviour and tells them that he’s an asshole. No one’s surprised when he says something unkind or tactlessly dismisses a genuine attempt at connection — and when he gets rejected, it’s easy to rationalise away. No one wants to work with an ill-mannered, ill-tempered bastard.

Except for the Horsemen, apparently, and that in and of itself is already both exhilarating and terrifying — but they’re all clever, too, smart and quick and too-keen, and see through most of the masks he tries to throw up. Sometimes he feels himself slipping, forgets to keep them at arm’s length when Jack grins too-brightly at him when he agrees to a movie and Merritt’s appreciative shoulder-pat fills him with something too-akin to pride, and it feels all too easy in the moment to feel like he belongs here, like he’s good enough to fit in and stay.

Those are the nights that it comes crashing in, the fear that he forgets how to keep them out and they look too closely, see too much. The more he lets them in, the more they see of him — the more they’ll find to criticise, to hate, and he doesn’t know what he’d do if he risks showing them every part of himself and they falter and decide that he’s too much, not enough.

Henley’s different, in that. She’s known him the longest, was with him back when he was just starting up and figuring out how everything worked and she was there for his first big stage, the first time they took the spotlights and saw faces staring back from every single side they looked at. She’s known him at his lowest and at their highest, and she’s seen too much to be surprised by what he’s like, at his core.

She knows he’s rough, and sharp, and she knows that he tries and fails and takes it badly, and tries again and again until he’s up in the middle of the night pacing up and down the living room trying to mull over every single way in which he’s not quite good enough yet, and drawing up plans on how he’s going to make up for hardly being good even before he’s failed them.

“Nothing important,” he says instead of any of that, because even though she knows him, knows that he’s shaken up and anxious and never knows how to quiet his mind unless he finds a way to make his body move just as quickly to catch up — she doesn’t know how deep it runs, how fragile the peace between himself and the voice that tells him all the ways in which he isn’t measuring up is, and if he lets it show, lets her know — he doesn’t know what she’ll say, and he’s too much of a coward to risk finding it out.

“Doesn’t look like nothing to me,” she says neutrally, moving away from where she’s leaning against the doorpost to step closer to him, closing the distance until she’s right in front of him. “You know you can tell me what you’re worried about, alright? We’re in this together.”

She catches his eye, warm brown eyes glimmering in the dark, and though he’s no stranger to drowning in them, whenever they get locked in one of their staring contests — there’s something uneasy about the endlessness of her gaze, and he breaks first, has to look away.

She sees him, and as much as he thrives in her gaze during the waking hours, loves it when she challenges him and pours oil on the fires of his soul, draws him in with an argument and then turns the world upside down when she wins it — there’s a dazed panic that tells him to hide, now, before she sees too much. There’s another part of him, vicious and protective, that tells him that she already has — and that he has to throw her off his trail.

He’s always been determined, bold and arrogant and too self-assured for anyone’s good, really, and he’s always been entirely too fallible to trust, even to himself. He knows this — knows that he’s defensive, and prickly, and has more walls up than he knows how to take down — and he tries, when Henley calls him out on it, to lower them, to walk around them or let her in and be honest with her, show just a little more of his heart just to prove to her that he has one — but there’s a blue haze in his mind, remnants of fear and guilt and breathlessness that leave him with nothing but the dams that keep the water from crashing in.

“Worried?” he says, faux confusion in his voice — and Henley’s expression shutters, frustration crossing her features the moment he dismisses her — and yet he can’t stop himself from ploughing on. “I’m not worried — I just can’t sleep. Too busy.”

“Come on, Danny,” she snaps, and she leans back, further away from him — and it feels like a rift between them, expanding with every word that spills from his tongue. “Don’t lie to me.”

“I—” I’m not lying, he doesn’t say — can’t say, knowing it would break the tentative truce they have been upholding since they got back, since they decided to link hands and hearts and leap into the future together — and instead he draws himself up, breathing in deeply as he tries to force the hammering of his heart to quiet down into a slower rhythm. “I’m fine, Henley, seriously. Don’t worry about it.”

“Oh, I’m not worried,” she shoots back, ice in her tone, “worrying would imply that I know what to be concerned about, and I clearly don’t — do I, Danny?”

She’s hurt — there’s a sliver of light falling through the crack in the curtains, spilling across the far wall behind her, and he can just make out the tense lines of her shoulders, the way that she’s physically holding herself back as though she doesn’t know how to remain standing otherwise.

“Henley—” he tries, and there’s something pleading in his tone now. He doesn’t even know what he’s asking of her — to give him a chance, to believe him, to understand that he’s trying and that he knows, completely, that it isn’t enough — “I’m sorry.”

The tension drains from her frame, something resigned instead taking its place. “You always are,” she sighs, “aren’t you?”

There’s nothing he can say to it — the apologies he doesn’t let into his words spill into his actions instead, silent excuses made through a dozen cups of coffee brewed to perfection, in the colours that she loves flowing throughout the apartment they share, the silence that follows her words when he stops himself from getting the final word in.

It’s never what she needs, and it’s never enough — and he knows it, the same way that she knows it’s the best he can do.

He doesn’t know what to say, to that — and she turns around, walks back towards the door to the bedroom and lingers in the doorway, her back still towards him. “You wake me up in the middle of the night,” she starts, “and never tell me why. You don’t tell me how you feel, and you don’t let me in — and when I ask, you never tell me what I need to hear, or what you need to say. I can’t do this, Danny — I can’t love you when you won’t let me.”

Since when do you wait for permission? he doesn’t say, knows that it wouldn’t do anything but sever the ties between them further. He knows that she’s trying, that she’s making concession after concession and gives him too many chances to keep messing it up — but he’s trying, too. The silence drags on between them, and he sees her patience wearing thin, the way she shifts to move away, to leave him to his thoughts, alone, in the space that’s meant to hold them both—

“I’m— scared,” he says, haltingly— there’s a catch in his voice when he says it, and the rest of the words dry up on his tongue, years of practice in keeping all his vulnerabilities close to his chest kicking in at his display of showing weakness.

She turns around all the same — stares at him, expression unreadable, and she waits for him to come closer, to take the first step towards her.

He does — and then another, and the closer he gets, the more he feels the warmth radiating off of her, a silent encouragement in the way she reaches out a hand and lets him clutch onto her like a lifeline. “I’m scared that I’m— too much,” he offers, voice thin and low in the quiet air between them, almost inaudible with the way his throat seems to be closing up. “That it’s too much work, and not enough— yeah.”

It’s lame, even to his own ears, and there’s a roar of blood in his ears — and yet, perplexingly, she smiles.

“That’s okay,” she says, and her grip on his hand tightens, holding onto him as though he’s offering encouragement to her, too — and then she tugs him closer, until they’re locked in an embrace that feels as much supporting as supportive. “You can’t be too much work if you never let me help.”

She means it as a reassurance, an invitation for him to let her carry a little more — and yet it’s exactly what he’s scared of, why he can’t let her in — he’s not too much so long as he carries it all himself, and he doesn’t know how to risk lending part of himself out to anyone else, not even her.

She knows him, though, too well — and she sighs, one hand trailing over his shoulder to keep him from pulling away. “You have to let me in. You can’t carry a relationship on your own.”

She’s right — she usually is, even though he hates to admit it, and he breathes out, feeling the ends of her hair scratch his cheek where they ruffle with his breath. “I want to try,” he says, a promise that echoes in the air between them, the empty space around them — “if it’s— If this is what you want.”

He’s finally learned her trick, it would seem — he doesn’t say too much, talk around it or overexplain just to throw her off his trail — and she gets it, in only those few words, and she presses a soft kiss to his shoulder through the fabric of his shirt.

“I want this,” she whispers, letting her weight rest against his front, and he hears her smile even in the words, “so come to bed. Stay with me. Let me help.”

“Okay,” he says, unable to do anything but follow when she asks, and he lets her tug him along through the door, the unspoken barrier between alone and togetherness crossed the moment she pulled him over.

It’s always a little like this, he muses later, when they’re in bed and she’s asleep and the insistent, familiar buzzing hums under his skin. He works himself up, gets caught up in his own mind, and she’s the one to drag him out — to come after him and reach, to offer a hand, and he’s helpless to resist.

She’s the one that tells him where to go, and where to look, and he panics and deflects and snaps the way he always has — and ultimately ends up right back at her side, caught in her orbit like a planet drawn to the sun. He turns around, and tries to leave, and hides in the shade before inevitably finding himself back in the light that she radiates, and he basks in it every time despite the fear that it’ll burn it up.

Some nights, he thinks he’d be better off running — saving what’s left of himself while he still can, before he goes up in flames — and some nights, he thinks it’d be worth it.

As he lies next to her, her breath ghosting across the side of his arm where she’s leaning close to him — he thinks it’s worth it.

Their roles reverse.

It’s slow, gradual at first — hints of anxiety, an impatience and restlessness on the tips of her fingers where they tap across his skin that are as unfamiliar to her as they are familiar to himself. It’s an unease he knows well from years of late nights and swallowed doubts, from pushing through uncertainties and fears only to come out on the other side and barrel right into high-strung, terse responses and dismissive gestures.

He tries, and he messes up, and he tries again — the same pattern he’s followed since they got together, since he learned how to try and try again — and he tries to reach out, whenever he finds the words. In between the loud, jovial dinners at Jack and Merritt’s place and unproductive, tedious team meetings with Dylan where he tells them to be patient and refuses to tell them anything more — there’s quiet evenings that he spends with Henley, that they used to use to wind down and talk, that now are more silent than anything else.

He was always the one on the move, unable to sit still and calm down, to let go of the tension that clung to his frame and haunted his voice — and now she’s the one buzzing with a faint nervousness, her patience worn thin and her tolerance fraying under the constant pressure of staying hidden from the world.

She’s caught up in her own mind, chipping away at herself while she tries to keep her composure, swallowing the biting remarks that glimmer from behind her teeth — and he fumbles on the words when he tries to ask, when he attempts to take a page from her book and reach out.

It’s unproductive. Neither of them are used to it, clumsy in their attempts to care, and it grates on them both. He asks her what’s on her mind, and she snaps and tells him that it’s nothing — he bristles at the dismissal, a rejection of his efforts, draws away again to avoid making it worse or blowing it up — and when when he stays up too late and wakes her when he goes to bed after the evening has long since disappeared — her kisses taste like guilt, and his name sounds like a plea.

She’s wearing thin under the weight of the time they spend hiding — when he arranges another dinner with Jack and Merritt, she tells him that they never spend time together, anymore — and when they’re alone, sitting on the couch in the evenings, he can’t find the words to break the silence, and she goes to bed early.

Something’s bound to break, eventually — and he does what he can to try and glue the pieces that crumble off back together. He offers to listen if she wants to talk — and she never does, telling him that it’s not important and that he doesn’t need to worry. He wonders, more and more, if this is what he was like, too — and he owes it to her to give her back the same of what she gave him, the patience and grace with which she waited for him to understand what to do and how to get there.

He swallows the flames that threaten to ignite with every sharp retort and dismissal that she throws his way, and he forgives her when she finds him in the mornings with a cup of coffee made perfectly to his preference, an apology in the language that they’re both fluent in by now.

He bites down on the frustration that builds behind his sternum like a bomb, and lets her slam the door when she goes out for a walk, and steps between her and Dylan when tensions run too high, falling back into the arguments with easy familiarity. He searches for the words to say when it’s the two of them, tries to choose the right ones and instead settles for the tone when the words prove too difficult.

He finds her awake in the middle of the night, staring out the window, and her name sounds like a prayer. When she comes in through the front door and he greets her, it sounds like welcome home — and when she breaks down one evening, breath hitching and frustration bubbling over, he holds her close and calls her name and it sounds a little like forgiveness.

She apologises anyway, guilt heavy in her gaze, and it feels alien, wrong on her — and the words feel a little hollow when he tells her she has to let him in, too.

They’re trying, is the thing — but they’ve always been a little too similar, a little too much of themselves and not enough of each other, and they’re falling apart, disintegrating every time he reaches out and misses the mark, fracturing every time she turns away and shuts him out.

He sees his habits in her hands, and she sees her efforts in his — and there’s a bitter, petty piece of him that screams that it’s all wrong, that this isn’t her — and he realises, too late, that he doesn’t feel much like himself anymore, either.

“Stay,” he tells her one evening, when she tells him she’s heading to bed early — and forgets to make it sound like a question, like an invite.

“I’m not a dog,” she retorts, rolling her eyes and pulling her arm away even before he’s able to reach out. “There’s nothing to stay up for — we have nothing to do.”

There’s no show, no plans, no preparations — their futures are an empty canvas, unpainted and unmade, and even though he hates the uncertainty, keeps fighting against the wave of anxiety that surges up any time he thinks about their future for more than a second — he can’t let it show, not when Henley is unraveling and there’s not enough space in their living room for both of their fears.

“Henley,” he tries, lowly, and her name sounds like a plea again. He sounds a little more like himself. “Please — stay for me. I’m trying.”

She hesitates, looks away before she can meet his eyes — and then she sighs, regret weighing down on her shoulders until she slumps back onto the couch. “I’m sorry,” she says, and when she looks up, she looks a little more like herself. “I know you are. I’m trying, too.”

There’s something desperate in her tone, something aching as though she’s convincing herself, too, and Daniel nods, tries to find his voice and remember what she used to do whenever he got too up in his own head to notice.

He finds that he doesn’t remember it all that well, and settles for doing what he used to do — swallows the buzzing in his veins that tells him that it’s all wrong, that he needs to move, change something, hide from prying eyes or wreck everything until they’re forced to look away — and he makes her a coffee.

She’s watching him from the couch, and he feels her gaze prickle along his skin while he pours the milk in, measures out exactly three quarters in a teaspoon of sugar and gives it an experimental stir. It’s perfect, the way it always is — and when she wraps her hands around the steaming mug, says his name when their eyes meet — for the first time in a long time, it sounds like a thank-you again.

Things don’t get better from there.

They grow different from what they were, and some would say that that’s good — but there’s a coffee spilling over his fingers, hot and scorching, and yet he barely feels it over the sharp spike of indignation that surges through his veins.

“Coffee doesn’t fix this, Daniel,” Henley calls out, rising to her feet and gesticulating wildly between herself and him. “We’re stuck, following a pipe dream, and we’ve been waiting for months to no avail — sitting here and drinking coffee endlessly isn’t going to change anything!”

He registers, faintly, that he’s not holding the mug steady enough, that there’s more spilling down the rim, dripping onto the floor beneath him — and he puts the coffee down, ignoring that whatever’s still inside the mug sloshes over the side as it slams down harder than intended. “No, I should just take a page from your book and start yelling — surely that will help, huh?” he snaps back, voice rising almost faster than his temper, and Henley scoffs.

“Like you’re one to talk — you spent the entire first year doing nothing but yelling,” she retorts, rolling her eyes, and she closes the distance between them. “You did nothing but yell at all of us and drive us away, and close up the second we made even the slightest attempt to include you in anything we did — and now you’re coming for me over raising my voice? Give me a break!”

There’s something vitriolic searing the back of his throat, begging to be spit out and pour from behind his teeth, to tear at her and make her feel this awful, cloying thing that he feels, too, just so he doesn’t have feel it alone — and it howls, spitefully, that we used to mean him and her, Henley and Daniel — and suddenly it’s come to mean Henley, Jack and Merritt.

He doesn’t know when that changed — when suddenly she stopped taking his side, when there started being sides altogether, why he doesn’t know why he’s finding it so hard to bridge the gap and try to stand on her side, now.

She’s pitting them against you, that voice hisses in the back of his mind, acidic and savagely, they’re never going to choose you over her.

It’s an awful thought, from an awful part of himself that he tries not to listen to, that he’s tried to be better than, and he breathes in deeply and breathes out slowly and swallows the bile that gathers at the back of his tongue. “I’m trying to be better than that,” he grits out, sees the way it makes her bristle, as though he’s implying that he’s better than her, and he tries it again, tries to find the words to make this anything other than what it is. “I’ve been making an effort to be more like you.”

It’s what she would have done, half a year ago — try and smooth things over, extend an olive branch. The irritation singeing his insides doesn’t make it easy, but it’s the best he can do — it’s a compliment, barbed and pointed as it may be, and she scoffs at it.

“I never asked you to,” she shoots back, vicious and vindictive, and she shakes her head, takes a step further away from him. “God, Daniel — I don’t want you to be me. Why is it so hard for you to understand?”

“Because I don’t get it,” he lashes out, the final dredges of his self-control snapping under the fire of her agitation. “I don’t know what you want me to do — be less like me, but not like you — it’s never enough for you, is it?

There’s not enough air in the room, he’s realising faintly, as he watches her chest heave in symbiotic parallel to his own, both of them struggling to catch their breaths as though the room isn’t big enough to fit the both of them, anymore.

Henley huffs, a cold front suddenly setting in, and she seems to eye him up and down, raising her eyebrows at him as she draws herself back. “No, apparently it’s not.”

There’s thunder in his ears, heart pounding in his throat, and his voice catches when he speaks again. “That’s not fair, Hen.”

She rubs a hand across her face, weariness setting in, and she shakes her head with a half-hearted attempt at a smile, ending somewhere closer to a despairing grimace. “I can’t do this, Danny.”

She sighs, takes another step back until she reaches the couch and lets herself sink down onto the cushions. “I can’t take this waiting, this endless limbo of standing by and watching the world pass us by. I can’t do it.”

She’s right there, only a few steps away from him, and yet she’s so far away, out of his reach despite the severity of the gaze they share. He can’t look away, can’t manage to break away from her orbit, and she can’t seem to help the way she draws him in, still, even when she’s like this — tired, and frustrated, and dejection weighing her down.

He doesn’t know how to do it, either — there’s nothing he can change to fix it, to change the world that lies ahead of them and get them back on the playing field. Dylan’s the one in charge, the one that has to orchestrate their futures and make the plans, and he doesn’t tell them anything other than to be patient. Daniel’s never been a very patient person — and neither has Henley.

“So what, then?” he tries, because he’s always been many things — quick, and clever, and dextrous and talented and loud but he’s never, ever been subtle a day in his life and he doesn’t know where to start, now. “You’re just going to quit?”

“Maybe,” she says, and the light in the room seems to dim for a moment, as though the world itself closed its eyes at the thought. It might just be him, though, and the way that his breath is no longer doing funny things but just stops altogether and his vision starts to fade out a little. “There has to be something out there — something more?”

“More than what?” He’s defensive — hears it in his own voice, the same way he hears the hammering of his heart in his throat and the too-loud ticking of the hands on the clock, a cruel reinforcement of the time that they’re wasting, that they’re losing now — “more than the Horsemen? More than performing, with us — with Dylan? More than me?”

She doesn’t answer — and for a moment, it’s a little like looking through a window, or staring at a painting in a frame. She’s beautiful, the same way she always is, familiar red hair falling past her shoulders and the uneven cadence of her breath — but he barely recognises her. Henley’s never quiet, never silent — she always knows what to say, whether it’s with words or with the tone in her voice or with a look or a glower.

She’s never silent, never a ghost haunting the confines of their living room, fading away before his very eyes — and something terrified and small in him whispers that she’s going to leave, that she’d wither and wilt if she stayed. That she has to.

A different, selfish part of him wishes that she would, anyway — just so he wouldn’t be alone. That it’s not fair, that she can’t do this — can’t make him believe in her, in them, and trust that she’d stay if nothing changes after all and he’s still going to end up alone. He doesn’t know how to forgive her if she goes.

He just also doesn’t know how to forgive her if she stays.

“Figure it out,” he says eventually, iciness in his tone, turning on his heel and stalking towards the front door. He needs air, and to breathe, and the longer he stays the less he feels like a person.

He can’t do this — can’t sit and watch her weigh her options, can’t stand by and let her consider whether he measures up against the drag of what their life has become. She’s his every fear — that he shows her as much of him as he can, all that he has left, and that he’s still not enough to stay for at the end of the day. That he offers her everything he can, no matter how flawed and small and clumsy, and that she doesn’t want it anymore.

He needs to move — needs to run, or scream, or throw her favourite mug at the wall and let his heart bleed out on the shards, needs to grab at her shoulders and plead for her to stay and shout at her that she can’t do this, don’t do this, please, you can’t leave—

He goes on a walk.

It’s still warm out, despite the fact that the sun has long since set, and he sets out at a brisk pace until he reaches the park where they used to sit on the bench and stare at the ducks, and then he turns around and walks away again until he reaches the street with their favourite restaurant and he walks away again — and everywhere he turns she’s there, in the corner of his eye, in the remnants of the memories they have, and eventually he finds a street they haven’t been and paces it up and down long enough that the few stragglers left outside start shooting him odd looks.

When he gets home, walks into their streets, the lights are still on in the living room, just the faintest glimmer of light through the crevice beneath the blinds. She’s still awake. She’s waiting for him.

There’s hope in the back of his mouth, acrid and bittersweet, and he deliberately slows down on the staircase up and breathes in and tries to calm down, tries to take a page out of her book and remembers that she doesn’t want him to be like her and breathes out again and tries to remember how to be more like himself.

He can do this. They can do this, together — he just needs to find the right words to say, and the right things to do, and the best way to apologise so that she’ll see it, too, and then they can fix everything again, move forward with something more than what they were. It can be enough.

When he opens the door, key still dangling from the lock — there’s packed suitcases by the wall.

Henley’s gone.

He doesn’t even properly remember all the things he said, all the things she said — she left, in the morning, after he yelled at her and called her a quitter, called her weak and spineless and a coward, and she screamed back that he was the worst mistake she’d ever made and that she never should have taken his hand, and he’d insulted her and she’d insulted him right back and then they’d both, inevitably, burned all the bridges they’d spent so long trying to build.

He’d stood opposite her and he’d thought of how alone he’d been in the years after they’d split the first time — they were never together, but they’d been something, and he’d never known how to tell her that until she’d gone and all he had left of her were the pictures on her website.

He could have told her then — told her that she felt like the sun, warm and radiant and brilliant, that he couldn’t look away from her no matter how much she burned him, and he could have told her that the apartment felt cold whenever she was out, that the world was too big without her and that he didn’t know how to move forward if she wasn’t right ahead of him.

He could have told her that he loved her enough to fuel a wildfire, that he’d never known how to say it and spit sparks instead of warmth but that it was her, always her, that he didn’t think that would ever stop — that he’d always known exactly who he was, and what he was, but that she made him want to be more. That she made him want to try.

He’d stared at her, rejection and abandonment and fear clawing in his chest, gnawing at his ribs, and instead he’d spat at her that she’d always been a runner, that if nothing would ever be enough then go, and don’t bother crawling back again if the world on your own isn’t what you thought it would be — despite the desperation singing in his veins to stop, stop, you have to stop and ask her to stay.

She’d stared at him, familiar fury on her face and familiar acid on her lips, and she’d snapped that he wasn’t worth crawling back to — he couldn’t change, and neither could she, and it’d been delusional of them to even think of trying — and when she said his name again, that last time, it sounded like goodbye.

There’d been other things, in between, he’s fairly sure — he hasn’t let himself think too much on it. He’d thrown his phone at the wall and swept the shards of the broken glass into the corner and he’d moved his couch in front of the door to keep it shut now that the lock won’t close properly, anymore — it’d slammed shut hard enough that it swung right back open again, and now it doesn’t fit quite the way it used to, and the irony of it had stung enough that he’d stalked right over to his couch and started pushing.

He’s not sure how long it’s been — could be a day, could be three, could have been a week — but he knows Merritt and Jack showed up at his door in the meantime, heard their voices in the hallway and watched the couch move an inch when they shoved at the door and eventually listened to the silence descend upon him again when they left and called out something about coming by later.

He’s not sure if he wants them to.

He hasn’t seen them in a while — they used to have dinner together a few times a week, the four of them, and then that petered out until they only got together on Fridays, and he hasn’t bothered with checking for the date or arranging another get-together any time soon. They’re not a team, not without her — and it won’t be long until they, too, realise that whatever they’re doing, whatever they put their lives on hold for — it’s not worth it.

He doesn’t want to lose them, but it’s inevitable — they’re going to drift apart, or choose to go with Henley, wherever she’s gone, or they’re going to get fed up with waiting, too, and leave—

He stares at the door and pictures Henley coming home, imagines the scratching of her keys in the lock and the handle clicking shut quietly — and turns around abruptly, tearing his eyes away before the wall crumbles underneath his glare.

He’s done waiting. He’d tried waiting for Dylan to have a plan, for the future they were promised — and all of it feels empty without Henley. She’s not here, and she won’t be, and no matter what plan Dylan offers them now, whatever show or performance or trick he’ll be able to conjure up — it’s too late for it to mean anything.

Her coffee is still on the table. It’s cold — has been cold for days, now. He stares at the card in his hands, The Lovers smiling back up at him, and when he flips it, the eye of the logo stares back at him, unblinking.

They’re running out of time. Henley’s gone — they’ve lost her, he’s lost her, and if they don’t move, if nothing happens and nothing changes, then Merritt and Jack will be gone, too. Something needs to happen. Something needs to give.

He turns back to the door, hesitates for a second, before breathing out unevenly and tugging on the couch, unbarricading the entrance of the apartment. He’s got no phone, and he doesn’t remember where he’s left his wallet, and his keys are virtually useless — and he’s out the door before he knows it. He’s done waiting.